Lessons in economics

A California state judge handed down a surprising and oddly reasoned verdict Thursday: Sprint Nextel's early termination fees for cell phone customers are illegal.

My colleague Maggie Reardon wrote an article about the 38-page ruling, which orders Sprint to pay $18.25 million to California customers who were charged termination fees. Customers charged fees who never paid them get a credit of $54.75 million.

You can imagine how much of this will go to the members of the supposed class that was harmed, and how much to the plaintiff's lawyers. In the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas … Read more

LAS VEGAS -- Whole Foods CEO John Mackey doesn't exactly disagree with Bill Gates' recent call for "creative capitalism."

Gates, of course, gave a high-profile speech in January that called for corporate executives to engage in "market-based social change" to to do "work that eases the world's inequities." The non-financial rewards? "Recognition" instead of, or in addition to, profits.

But Mackey doesn't completely agree with Gates either. At a speech here at a political conference on Thursday, the co-founder of the exclusive grocery chain sketched out a more free-market … Read more

If you think there's something a little odd about a bunch of corn farmers lobbying Congress to hold hearings on the details of a Google-Yahoo advertising deal, you may be right.

A letter (PDF) that the American Corn Growers Association and other farmers' groups sent to the U.S. Congress on Monday appears to be linked to a Washington, D.C., lobby group that does work for cable providers, some of Google's most potent political adversaries.

The letter warned Senate and House committee chairmen that any such deal would "create a monopolistic concentration of power in the … Read more

Banks, credit card companies, and some Democratic members of Congress are predicting that forthcoming restrictions on Internet gambling will ensnare innocent customers and threaten the viability of e-commerce.

The criticism came at a congressional hearing on Wednesday devoted to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, enacted in 2006 by a Republican Congress after pressure from social conservatives. The Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department published draft regulations last fall--which financial institutions say will disrupt perfectly legal transactions unless dramatic changes are made before the rules take effect.

"Consumers will be placed at risk of having lawful transactions blocked," … Read more

q&a SAN JOSE--T.J. Rodgers is an unapologetic capitalist who happens to be the chief executive of San Jose, Calif.'s, Cypress Semiconductor. The two roles, as you'll soon see, are deeply intertwined.

Cypress' product catalog includes things like programmable logic devices, USB controllers, and SRAM chips--the basic building blocks of modern gadgets and computers.

Today in Silicon Valley, though, Rodgers is just as well-known for his role in buying and building up SunPower, which sells rooftop solar systems that provide power at prices competitive with utility rates. SunPower's market capitalization is more than $5 billion, … Read more

q&a SAN JOSE, Calif.--T.J. Rodgers is an unapologetic capitalist who happens to be the chief executive of San Jose's Cypress Semiconductor. The two roles, as you'll soon see, are deeply intertwined.

Cypress's product catalog includes things like programmable logic devices, USB controllers, and SRAM chips--the basic building blocks of modern gadgets and computers.

Today in Silicon Valley, though, Rodgers is just as well known for his role in buying and building up SunPower, which sells rooftop solar systems that provide power at prices competitive with utility rates. SunPower's market capitalization is more … Read more

I'm doing a live chat Thursday about technology, politics, and the 2008 presidential election, and you're invited to participate. Topics include: Which candidate is the most tech-friendly? Who will protect online liberty the best? Who actually understands economics? And how much does any of this matter when candidates are talking about Iraq, the economy, and health care instead?

By way of background, check out News.com's 2008 voters' guide that we published in January. John Edwards may not be in the race any more, but the other candidates we profiled still are.

And at 11 a.m. … Read more

For a few months Comcast has been the subject of scattered reports that say it throttles BitTorrent traffic.

TorrentFreak said in August that Comcast was surreptitiously interfering with file transfers by posing as one party and then, essentially, hanging up the phone. But when we contacted Comcast at the time, it flatly denied doing it.

Thanks to tests reported Friday by the Associated Press, however, it's clear that Comcast is actively interfering with peer-to-peer networks even if relatively small files are being transferred.

The tests involved transferring a copy of the King James Bible through the BitTorrent network on … Read more

The stiff winds of Internet competition have already swept through countless businesses, including travel agents, car dealers, wine retailers and stock brokers.

Some have adapted. Some have perished. I have a friend who, to his chagrin, became a licensed stockbroker in Pennsylvania just as E*Trade and other Internet brokerages were becoming popular. And does anyone even remember travel agents anymore?

Now newspapers are facing a hurricane-strength competitive gale, and they, understandably, don't like it one bit. A recent article in the Columbia Journalism Review titled "The Uncle Sam Solution" suggests everything from ownership tax incentives and … Read more